Not wholly unfounded: but the objection proceeds on an arbitrary and (I
think) false assumption, that the Lord's Prayer was universally
prescriptive in form and arrangement.
12. The Litany ... omitteth very many particulars, ... and it is
exceeding disorderly, following no just rules of method. Having
begged pardon of our sins, and deprecated vengeance, it proceedeth
to evil in general, and some few sins in particular, and thence to
a more particular enumeration of judgments; and thence to a
recitation of the parts of that work of our redemption, and thence
to the deprecation of judgments again, and thence to prayers for
the King and magistrates, and then for all nations, and then for
love and obedience, &c.
The very points here objected to as faults I should have selected as
excellencies. For do not the duties and temptations occur in real life
even so intermingled? The imperfection of thought much more of language,
so singly successive, allows no better representation of the close
neighbourhood, nay the co-inherence of duty in duty, desire in desire.
Every want of the heart pointing Godward is a chili agon that touches at
a thousand points. From these remarks I except the last paragraph of s.
12:
(As to the prayer for Bishops and Curates and the position of the
General Thanksgiving, &c.)
which are defects so palpable and so easily removed, that nothing but
antipathy to the objectors could have retained them.
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